[00:00:00] Nick (Narrate): With over six and a half million articles, Wikipedia is ubiquitous. It’s the ninth most visited website in the world receiving just under 10 million visits per month according to Wikimedia statistics, many of those visits are from AI chat bots like ChatGPT, which have learned human speed patterns in large thanks to the encyclopedia. Still, in spite of all of that, Wikipedia carries a reputation lace in doubt. Sure, it’s reliable enough when you forget the actor who played Doc Hudson in Cars. But when you’re writing a paper for history class, to quote various classroom syllabi, use any source besides Wikipedia.
That doubt comes from Wikipedia being open source. Unlike Encyclopedia Britannica, which hires writers for their entries, anyone with an internet connection can write and edit a Wikipedia article. Yet that precise openness may just be what makes Wikipedia such a valuable and important resource for knowledge.
[00:01:05] Ariel Cetrone: because anybody can create a username, sometimes people say, oh, well that’s the fault of Wikipedia because it can encourage misinformation. We’ve actually found that that’s not true.
[00:01:15] Nick (Narrate): That’s Ariel Stron. She’s an institutional partnerships manager for the Wikimedia Foundation. A nonprofit started by Wikipedia’s founders to organize fundraising and manage Wikipedia’s needs.
[00:01:26] Ariel Cetrone: wIC media itself does not have any oversight over the content. And is all volunteer driven so if somebody wants to see something on Wikipedia, they create a username, they add that information, they cite their sources they make sure that it should be in Wikipedia, and then it goes. Out within the encyclopedia
[00:01:44] Nick (Narrate): According to Citron, the site has 11,000 active editors, also known as Wikipedians. Wikipedia bases itself on its sense of community. It’s the reason there’s anything on the site to begin with, and the mechanism which keeps the info up to date. it might feel like the Wild West, but changes to the articles don’t happen in a vacuum.
[00:02:08] Ariel Cetrone: There are very active editors who sometimes will monitor certain, uh, content that’s added. They’ll sign up to have certain articles on their watch lists, which means that anytime that they’re edited or changed in any way, they’ll get be notified and those editors will go in and just. Make sure that things still look okay. in some cases if they don’t feel that it belongs there, they can delete it or revert some of the changes made there. in addition there are bots tracking for a blatant vandalism. For example, if somebody goes in and, and has a particular politician, they’re not a fan of the bot will make sure that there aren’t any trigger words or things that are going in there.
[00:02:42] Nick (Narrate): on any given entry, there’s a corresponding article talk page linked in the top left corner underneath the page’s title.
[00:02:49] Ariel Cetrone: So if someone wants to talk about a particular article, they can go to an article talk page, they can tag somebody using their username and communicate that way.
[00:03:00] Nick (Narrate): These forms of communication allow for as sort of peer review system to exist.
[00:03:04] Ariel Cetrone: There are groups of editors who work together under what we call Wiki projects. They work together usually related to a particular theme. for example, there’s Wiki Project Medicine where there are a number of dedicated editors who are actually medical doctors and medical professionals who work on articles related to, uh, the medical field.
[00:03:23] Nick (Narrate): As the number of wikipedians increase, so too does the access to knowledge that’s previously been far off and hard to reach.
[00:03:31] Ariel Cetrone: of course we have the internet now. But not everything is online. So for example, if I have access to print materials at the Library of Congress here in DC and somebody, you know, Elsewhere in the world does not have access to the information. I can take that and make it into a high quality article, So having editors around the world that are able to access materials that are not digitized, does build the strength of the encyclopedia.
[00:03:59] Nick (Narrate): All this in theory, makes the articles on the site more accurate over time.
[00:04:03] Ariel Cetrone: A reader who doesn’t have this background information it’s one of the reasons people say, oh, I don’t trust Wikipedia, or, I don’t know that this is monitored correctly. I think, you know, sort of this community driven and, and created encyclopedia is probably stronger and more in depth than, tertiary sources.
[00:04:20] Ken Alder: this is sort of an argument people make about science as well.
[00:04:24] Nick (Narrate): That’s Professor Ken Alder. He’s a professor of history at Northwestern University. He’s written four books and regularly contributes and publishes articles in academic journals. He’s about as in the world of academia, as one can get,
[00:04:40] Ken Alder: Science is a social process, uses peer review, and all these, you know, critiques of one scientist. Proves the other one got it wrong about some particular interpretation. And I think Wikipedia does a similar kind of thing, to see knowledge as a communal process, which is what Wikipedia is, is to mirror how reliable knowledge can be produced.
[00:05:01] Nick (Narrate): To go back to the site’s reputation, there’s a tendency to position Wikipedia at odds with the academic world. According to Alder. That’s just not true
[00:05:13] Ken Alder: The relationship between sort of the Wikipedia community and the academic community, I think they’re overlapping at some point and clearly read each other at this point.
[00:05:21] Nick (Narrate): Alder considers Wikipedia a great resource of finding general information on a topic. In fact, he actually recommends his students use the site when they’re in the beginning stages of their research.
[00:05:32] Ken Alder: Surprisingly, you know, biographies of people, they’re gonna do a great job. It’s not interpretive, but for the kind of information you would use to get from Encyclopedia Britannica, I think actually it does a pretty good job.
[00:05:46] Nick (Narrate): where Wikipedia is a way of providing fact-based information. Alder considers historical interpre Alder considers historical interpretation to be the job of the historian.
[00:05:58] Ken Alder: I, I go deep. That’s my job. To take information and facts and do deep dives and then big interpretations. Taking situations, going deep into the events and then drawing large conclusions. I’m not there to correct the record about facts. I’m not there to go broad in that way. And that, that’s just not the venue for Wikipedia. It’s the venue for books have I found things wrong on Wikipedia? Yeah, I mean, sure, of course. But you find things wrong in the finest academic books and or interpretations I disagree with, or times I think it’s thin.
[00:06:36] Nick (Narrate): Wikipedia isn’t without its flaws. A major area concern. A major area of concern is the site’s gender discrepancy in its . Articles. Only about 19% of all biographies on Wikipedia are about women.
[00:06:53] Ariel Cetrone: that’s what’s known within the community as the gender gap. So, professionally, we do a lot of events trying to close the gap.
[00:07:00] Nick (Narrate): To help Citron organizes outreach events called Edit Aons, where people, meet oftentimes in person, to create and spruce up articles on a given topic
[00:07:10] Ariel Cetrone: we’ll come up with a list of articles about notable women who should have Wikipedia articles and don’t, and we’ll work together to create them. about 80% of people, have not edited before coming to the event. They learn how to do it. They actually find it really fun. you know, not everyone sticks to it with it, but they get the general knowledge.
[00:07:26] Nick (Narrate): Wikipedians. Those who find themselves attracted to editing do so for a number of reasons. Some believe in the message that Wikipedia carries: Other people enjoy sharing the information they learn with others.
[00:07:39] Ariel Cetrone: Not things from their own brain, but things that they found when reading, um, other sources it sometimes it makes people feel empowered. It helps them learn. As they are writing, that’s one of my particular motivators. And I’m helping to share that information with the world.
[00:07:54] Nick (Narrate): no matter their reason for joining. Wikipedians will all agree that editing Wikipedia can be a surprisingly fun and satisfying task.
[00:08:06] Ariel Cetrone: For anybody who’s listening who would like to edit Wikipedia. It is always fun to start with the things that interest you. Go and, and read up on some things. Go into Wikipedia and crosscheck it to see if, if the things that you’re reading and learning about and, and liking are there. And if they’re not, definitely go ahead and create them.
[00:08:24] Nick (Narrate): For Medill, I’m Nick Song.
